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Hotel Verhaegen
Photos, architecture, history,
design, review of the luxury accommodation in Ghent
Article added on November 2, 2007
Hôtel Verhaegen offers the most
charming and elegant way to stay in the Belgium city of Ghent (Gent
in Dutch). It is a luxury
“bed-and-breakfast”. The French word “hôtel
particulier” refers to a house of standing and character, a private mansion,
normally for a single family and with more than one floor.
Hôtel Verhaegen is a listed 18th
century building. Therefore, the owners, Marc Vergauwe and Jan Rosseel were
not free in their interior design. Since the private mansion or hôtel
particulier had been handed over several generations, they felt that
they had no right to change it fundamentally. They feel more like
keepers of an architectural treasure. No doors were moved, the spaces were
respected.
For the four guestrooms on the first floor, they decided to create a new
architecture within the existing one in order to avoid changes that could
not be undone later. They made no effort to be trendy. Instead, they were
inspired by the building, but without creating a period atmosphere with
museum-like rooms.
One room was decorated reminiscent of the 1940s Art Deco style, when the
first clean style had become softer and more decorative.
Marc Vergauwe and Jan Rosseel first saw the Hotel Verhaegen in March 2004
and fell in love with it. In December 2004, they finally bought it from the
family Verhaegen and started to restore the house. It took them three months
just to put in the new electricity and water supply. At the end of June 2005
they moved furniture from their previous home to Hotel Verhaegen and, by
June 2005, they opened their first guestroom.
Details
make the difference
I remember an excellent Santos high-speed orange juice, a selection
of
Mariage-Frères teas,
Floris amenities in the bathroom, Roberts design
radios and sharp flat TVs in all guestrooms. All rooms have their original
18th century fireplaces. My bedroom in the Paola Room gas has a red bed
à la polonaise, decorative boxes, a Buddha statue and many more
decorative and design objects. The interior decorators Marc Vergauwe and Jan Rosseel
have created an eclectic, but tasteful mix,
making you feel at home. Old and new harmoniously coexist. The house may be
from the 18th century, but you can enjoy a high-speed internet
connection in your room.
The breakfast salon.
I remember an excellent Santos high-speed orange juice.
Photos ©
Sarah van Hove / Hotel Verhaegen, Ghent.
The history and art of Hotel Verhaegen
The main activity of Marc Vergauwe and Jan Rosseel is their interior design
studio Neoo selon Neo, created in 1990. They work on new buildings
and help with renovations and redecorations worldwide.
Marc's working room on the ground floor dates back to
the 1770s, with a mix of late Louis XVI baroque and Empire classicism style
decoration, with white plaster and gold, as well as ornamental leaves with a
Classicist Greek touch. The Chinese wallpapers (chinoiserie) known from old photographs were
destroyed probably in the early 20th century. They depicted the daily
life of the Chinese. On top of the plasterwork above the chimney one can
admire a dog representing truthfulness and a lion representing courage,
both standing aside a puto representing wealth and opulence. The candelabras
above the chimney with motifs copied from Pompeii are a sign of the
classicist influence.
In the working room of Jan you can admire a chinoiserie from the 18th
century pasted onto a linen frame. They are painted with insects, cranes,
partridges, peacocks, pheasants, flowers and trees. In the 18th century you
had to pay your goods from Asia in advance and take the risk that the ship
controlled by the Ostend Company, which controlled the Flemish trade in
luxury goods from 1723 onwards,
could sink on its sailing trip from China to Europe.
These two salons de passage are complemented by two bigger salons,
which face the present day French-style interior garden with symmetric
parterres of box hedges, which was only created in the early 20th
century by the Verhaegen family, is now already a listed monument itself. All four salons are still
equipped with the original chimneys.
The grand salon on the very right of the entrance is decorated with three
smaller supraportas canvases depicting the four seasons, the four elements
and the four hours of the day. The commission by Antoine-Bernard Triest was painted in the style of François
Boucher (1703-1770), inspired by engravings of Jacob de Wit (1698-1754) and
executed by the painter from Ghent Pieter Norbert van Reijsschoot
(1738-1795). A few years later,
Antoine-Bernard Triest commissioned the same artist to create five
impressive canvases for the adjacent dining room. They portray fishermen,
peasants and shepherds in idyllic genre scenes, inspired by paintings of
David Teniers the Younger (1610-1690) and other Flemish painters. According
to Marc, remarkable
and unusual for the time are the high skies painted by Pieter van Reijsschoot, filling two-thirds of the
canvases with clouds. In this salon, Marc Vergauwe and Jan Rosseel made sure that the wall
and wooden doors were restored in the original blue tone of the 18th
century.
The French-style garden - created in the first half of the 20th century - with the dépendance in the background.
Photo ©
Jan Rosseel / Hotel Verhaegen, Ghent.
The kitchen was in the side-building in order to avoid the destruction of
the entire hôtel in case of a fire. The dépendance opposite
the present day garden
also served once as the glassworks atelier of Arthur Verhaegen (1847-1917), who lived and worked here all year
long. The newer part of the building on the right was once a chapel.
The owner
Antoine-Bernard Triest bought the existing house in 1766 and started to
remodel it in 1768 in the latest fashion of the day to create the mansion as
we know it today. It served as the winter residence of the family.
In 1768, Antoine-Bernard Triest, descendant of the well-known bishop,
redesigned the elevations and commissioned the Rococo architect David 't Kindt (1699-1770) to modify
the front and the back of the hôtel. In 1828, his widow, Eleanore Philippe de Cronbrugghe
opted for a front façade in the Palladian style, known as Empire in Belgium.
Among the later otable owners of the hôtel particulier was the mayor of
Ghent, Minne-Barth. After a series of successions, the house was bought by Jules Clément Lammens in 1882. By a wedding, it passed to the Verhaegen family.
In 1872, the engineer, architect, designer, writer and politician Baron Arthur Verhaegen married one of the two daughters of Jules Lammers; the other
daughter became a nun. He was a grandson of Pierre-Théodore Verhaegen
(1796-1862), a lawyer, liberal politician, free and founder of the
Université Libre de Bruxelles.
As an architect, the pious Arthur Verhaegen worked in the Belgian Gothic
Revival style. He built schools and public housing for the poor. Among his
works are the brick buildings near Hotel Verhaegen, e.g. St. Lucas, the
present day
artistic middle and high school.
Arthur Verhaegen religious glassworks (vitraux)
were made in workshops in Bethune. In the atelier in the
garden building at Hotel Verhaegen, he had his design atelier. According to
Marc Vergauwe, Arthur Verhaegen made the vitraux for the Cathedral of Antwerp, Chloister Poortakere near Hotel Verhaegen,
at present itself a modest
hotel as well as many other places including the cities of Paris and Rome. Arthur Verhaegen stopped producing glass when his leading employee
established his own atelier.
As a Catholic-Conservative politician, Baron Arthur Verhaegen was one of the
founders of the Belgian Christian Democratic movement. He created the
Christian Labour Movement in Flanders (Association Ouvrière Anti-Socialiste),
the Ligue Démocratique Belge and the Catholic daily Het Volk.
In ancient times, what later became Hotel Verhaegen stood just outside the
city walls. Therefore, wood for the construction in the city was stored
here. The Wellinck Strad (Citadel Street), one of the three streets
surrounding Hotel Verhaegen, has some Medieval houses of former craftsmen.
In short, instead of a dead museum, Hotel Verhaegen is a showroom inhabited by
the owners as well as a handful of privileged guests, who sometimes become
clients of the designers.
Literature and sources for this article
Fredericq-Lilar, Marie: Gent in de 18de EEUW. De schilders van
Reijsschoot. 1992, 271 p.
Maeyer, Jan De: Arthur Verhaegen 1847-1917. De rode baron. KADOC-Studies
18, Leuven, 1994, 696 p.
Swimberghe, Piet and Jan Verlinde: Flanders: The Art of Living,
1994, 231 p.
Verhaegen, Arthur: Verdediging van het paternalisme, 1871.
Verhaegen, Arthur: Vingt-cinq années d'action sociale. Préface d'Albert
de Mun, Bruxelles, Albert Dewit,
“Bibliothèque de la revue sociale catholique”, ca. 1911, 369 p.
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The façade of Hotel Verhaegen from 1828 by night.
Photos ©
Jan Rosseel / Hotel Verhaegen, Ghent.
The living room salon with an Yves Klein sculpture on the table.
Photo ©
Jan Rosseel / Hotel Verhaegen, Ghent.
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The bedroom in the Italian Room.
Photo ©
Sarah van Hove / Hotel Verhaegen, Ghent.
View from the bedroom towards the living room in the suite.
Photos ©
Sarah van Hove / Hotel Verhaegen, Ghent.
View of the sitting area with the “Pasta” poster by the French artist Razzia in
the Paola Room. The room I stayed in is named in honor of the present day Queen of
Belgium who, as a young Italian princess, slept here when visiting the Baroness
Verhaegen, herself by birth a Swedish princess who lived in the Hôtel Verhaegen until 2004.
Photos ©
Sarah van Hove / Hotel Verhaegen, Ghent.
Detail of the bathroom in the Chambre des amoureux with a 19th century
Afghan camel hair coat placed above the bathtub. My favorite object in this
“room for lovers” is the
1993 iron sculpture representing an elk by Henri Terres, placed on the
mantlepiece in the bedroom. The calm Paola Room is situated on the first
floor, facing the dépendance building and offering a partial view of the
interior garden.
Photo ©
Sarah van Hove / Hotel Verhaegen, Ghent.
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